Instincts: Part II
by blacksparklyfaery
Summary: Continues directly on from Part I, where we last saw Griffin at the mercy of the paladins. This is set about four years after the events of the Jumper film. Griffin and the Jumper concept belong to Stephen Gould, Anna is my own.
1. Chapter 1

Part II Part II

Sam and Consuelo's house again. Outside the Hole. My lairs in Italy, South Africa, India, Norway, Afghanistan. Outside Alejandra's house. The Lake District. The Empty Quarter, time and time again. Landing in a shower of water, gasping for air, only to be dragged back sobbing into the blackness again.

Time becomes meaningless. I have no idea how long I spend in my underwater hell, how many places I jump to. I've been drowning for hours, maybe days. Once in a while I come back to the glass box and it's empty. The last time they did that, I kicked and punched at the glass until my knuckles were bleeding and at least one toe felt as if it were broken.

"What the _fuck_ do you want from me?" I scream into the dark.

There's no answer.

They leave me here for hours, throwing jolts of electricity at me every ten minutes or so, as if to just remind me that they're there. If it weren't for the fact that I'm tired and need to sleep, I'd welcome the pain. It reminds me what I needs to do, keeps my mind focussed. Get out. _Get out get out get out._ Sleep. Then go on an extended hunting trip. Open season on paladins. But right now my options seem rather limited and during the times when I can focus my thoughts sufficiently, I can't see an exit sign.

I can't give up, though. Roland is still out there, somewhere. Maybe only a few metres away, watching me through infrared cameras. Even if I did want to give up, the second I drift near to unconsciousness, my reflexes jump me away to the next place. The torture seems to have no end, and I can feel myself weakening, despite the anger and fear that's been driving me onwards. It's getting harder and harder to find my breath again, to cough up the water. The muscles are tired, I'm exhausted, and the only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that as soon as I get out of this shit, the sooner I can set about drowning the next fifty paladins I encounter. Preferably in a place where I can sit and watch them.

Oxford, England. I land in a field, lie in the wet grass, shivering and trying to find the energy to breathe. Eventually I roll over onto my back and stare up at the grey clouds. Rain falls but I can't feel it. _Dying by degrees_, I think, _that's what this is_. _Sorry Mum, sorry Dad. I tried._

"Coward," I whisper. "You've been through worse."

_Have I? Have I really? Cos this shit is pretty fucking deep. _

"You do make a lot of noise," says a female voice from nearby. Foreign, slightly harsh accent.

I turn my head to see a girl, sitting on the gate at the entrance to the field. She hops down and walks over to me, crouches down, takes my hands in hers. "Time to give them something to think about," she says, and jumps.

I wake up on a bed, dry, under a thick pile of blankets. My chest hurts with every breath, and my head feels as if it might break in two at the slightest sound, but I am alive. I'm not in a glass box, drowning in the darkness. I hear a sound and slowly turn my head to look into the room.

The girl is sitting beside me, her feet tucked up underneath her on a chair. Her dark hair is tied up loosely in a high ponytail, the red shirt she's wearing is a man's but she wears it well, with the sleeves casually rolled up. She's maybe in her early twenties, if that. Easily younger. She's reading a motorbike manual, and all around the chair are piles of machinery. My gaze wanders further across the room, taking in the stripped Alpha Romeo with bits of its engine strewn across the floor, the gym equipment, racks of assorted weaponry, and the banks of computer screens across one wall. No windows, the only light comes from bare light bulbs overhead.

As I'm looking, something moves on the bed. I flinch, look down. At my feet, a small black cat is washing itself.

"His name's Orion," says the girl, without looking up from her book.

"And yours?" Speaking is difficult, my throat feels raw and even the movement of air takes more energy than I can manage comfortably.

"Anna Chernyakov. And you are Griffin O'Connor."

I nod.

"Would you like a drink?" Without waiting for another nod, she gets off her chair, walks away and comes back with a glass of water. "Drink this, it will make you feel better."

I sit up carefully and take the glass from her. The water tastes awful and I nearly spit it out. Anna laughs at my expression. "I put the antibiotics in the water. I thought you would find them easier to take that way, rather than the capsules. They are rather big, and I would imagine that your throat hurts after what they did."

Too many questions to ask. "Antibiotics?"

She sits back down on her chair, tucks her feet back up underneath her and leans back. "For your chest. You're very…open to infection right now. You need to keep warm and dry. Pneumonia would be bad."

No kidding. I keep swallowing the bitter water and then ask, "How did you find me?"

"You make a lot of noise. I just had to wait until you were back in the UK again. You'd been here twice, I figured the chances were high that you'd turn up again."

I takes a breath to speak, then cough, violently, so much so that I'm almost surprised not to bring up a lung. When I finally manage to catch my breath, eyes watering, I find that she's picked up her manual again and is flicking through the pages.

"But how…"

"How did I know?" She folds over the corner of the page and looks at me. "I can always feel jumpers, especially when they make a lot of noise. And you, you make a lot of noise. It's okay, you were under a lot of stress." She turns back to her book.

I sigh, painfully, and lie back down again. Orion shifts slightly, leans against my feet and starts to purr. Despite the ache in my chest – and my stomach muscles, I realise, like when you've been throwing up all night – and the nausea-inducing headache, I manage to close my eyes and go to sleep.

When I open them again, Anna is nowhere in sight. There's a glass of water on a chair by the bed, with a scrawled note, saying "Drink Me" next to it.

"What, no white rabbit?" I mutter to myself as I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Even though the room is warm, the relative chill that hits bare skin comes as a shock, and it's only then that I realise that my jeans are draped over the back of the chair. I glance down. The t-shirt I'm wearing isn't mine, because that too is with the trousers. The boxers, thankfully, are. I glance down at the t-shirt and try to read the upside down white writing. 'I'm only here to serve as a warning to others', it reads.

"Great. A fucking comedian." I know I should be grateful to her for showing up when she did, that her intervention has given me another chance to be back out there, fighting. But that would mean that I owed her, and that's not even an option. That would mean accepting that she's helped me, and I'm not ready to let anyone close enough to help yet. David was the last one who even approached that, and look where that ended up. Another lair found and burnt to the ground, another chance – a fucking _good_ chance at that – to get that son of a bitch, Roland, and David had to go and fuck it up. And either Roland's caught up with David in the last four years, or the American kid has gone to ground like any normal jumper would, once they realise the paladins are on their tail. Maybe he took the girl with him; if he was bright he didn't, but that's unlikely. More likely they're both dead.

"Come on, shift your arse, O'Connor," I say, getting out of bed and putting on my own clothes. No shoes, but then I hadn't had those when I first woke up in the glass tank, so that's not surprising. I pick up the glass of water and walk over to the weapons rack, drinking slowly.

She's got good taste, I admit, examining the arsenal. A selection all the way from shotgun to semi-auto, with a few small pistols hanging up on the wall as well. Silencers, too. Nothing too flashy, it's all discrete, and any numbers have been filed off. The swords, though, they're in a different league. Beautiful – most of them Japanese katana, by the looks of the engravings and decoration on the sheaths. And a collection of throwing knives, all with a good weight and an even balance.

I slide out a drawer from the bottom half of the metal rack and am greeted with an astounding collection of torture devices – ranging from broken glass to intricate steel implements with teeth that point the wrong way. "Fuck me," I mutter.

"I'd rather not," Anna says, and I whirl round on the spot to find her standing only a few feet behind me.

I watch her walk over to the swords, pick one, unsheathe it, and hold out at arms length in front of her, straight up. "I didn't steal these, if that's what you're thinking," she says, not looking at me. "Nikolai did." She does a couple of moves from a kata, and pauses. "I think he loved them more than he loved me." Another few steps: brutal, direct, precise. The thin blade whistles as it cuts through the air. I move backwards, still holding the empty glass in my hand.

She swings the sword round in an arc over her head, spins, sweeps it low across the floor, then looks up at me from a crouching position, hair falling down across her face. "If you jump again, they'll catch you. They know your signature, they can track you all across the globe. It doesn't matter where you go."

"They use a tracking device," I say, already checking my clothes as I speak. "They must do."

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" she asks, standing up and turning to put the sword back on its rack. "If they used tracking devices they could trace you to here and, _charming_ as you are, I don't think you're worth giving up my home for. No, they track you. Your jump signature."

"That's not possible."

"That's what the last boy said. I never saw him alive again. He probably drowned in that fish tank of theirs." She shrugs. "Your funeral."

I drop the glass and jump, don't even hear the smash as it shatters into splinters on the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Part III Part III

I appear in the middle of a forest, a hundred metres or so from a dirt track winding its way through the trees and up the mountainside. Dirty afternoon sunshine is making a poor attempt to filter down between the evergreen branches, barely touching the ground underneath. I hike over towards the track, concentrating on the sharp pine needles and stones beneath my bare feet, because that's an easier pain to deal with than the one in my chest. Going up the hill is a struggle and despite everything I still have to stop once to cough, and then wait to catch my breath before continuing up the path. Twenty minutes later I reach an empty chalet, tucked away beside a clearing. There's no sign of anyone else having been here since my previous visit six months ago, but I still scout around the perimeter carefully before collecting the key from a knothole in one of the nearby trees and letting myself in.

_Never jump near home._

I check over the inside of the house, then, satisfied that it has remained untouched, I finally allow myself to sit down on the sagging armchair beside the log stove. Last time I was here I'd laid in a store of wood, just in case I needed to hole up for a while in cold weather. The logs are stacked up against one wall, and I rouse myself sufficiently to gather an armful, and light the stove. Then I collapse into the chair again, already grateful for the heat radiating out towards me. It's November, the air is chill and damp, and the chalet has been standing empty for half the year. I curl up into the chair, tuck my feet under me and close my eyes. Anna's voice echoes in my head:

…_they can track you all across the globe. _

"Bullshit," I mutter, reaching for the blanket that's thrown across the back of the chair and pulling it over myself. Sleep comes quickly.

The sound of the door opening wakes me, I open my eyes drowsily and manage to focus my attention on the silhouette in the doorway in time to spot the gun being raised in my direction. _Don't let anyone even point a weapon at you. _

_Jump_.

Back in the Empty Quarter, barefoot and still groggy from sleep, I land awkwardly in a cloud of dust. I catch myself, roll, and wind up at the bottom of a short slope, gasping and swearing, sand falling out of my hair and clothes.

"How the fuck…?" I'm asking the thin air, as I scramble back onto my feet and stare around. The desert is blissfully empty. In the distance I can see buzzards wheeling, dark shapes circling on an updraft. There must be something either dead or dying over in that direction. The sky is an azure void, unmarred by clouds.

"They got lucky, Griff', that's all. They just got lucky." I pace up and down, ignoring the blisters on my feet. Time enough to pick up some shoes once I've calmed down and figured out how the hell the paladins found the chalet. Not a chance that they've got Sensitives that close, it's in the middle of nowhere. Nobody within a hundred miles.

"So how the _fuck_ did they find it, then?" I yell at the expanse of sand and rock, hands clenched into fists. I need to punch something, use up some energy, kick a paladin in the teeth and then drop him into the Arctic. I climb up the nearest outcrop of rock without even thinking about it – the need to do something physical outweighing the reasoning behind the action. At the top I collapse onto my hands and knees, wheezing, and stare at the red sandstone between my fingers. "It's her. She must've told them. Tracked where I jumped, something like that. Gotta be. Fucking Russian bitch."

Something makes me look up and out across the desert, a quick glance into the heat haze. For a moment I don't quite believe what I'm seeing. Trick of the light. A dust cloud is on the horizon. The sort of dust that's only raised by heavy traffic moving along the road, coming in this direction. I lie down on his front, lowering my silhouette against the sky. They're a long way off, but why take chances?

"This is beyond a joke." I stare at the dust moving ever closer. "This is taking the fucking piss."

_Right_, I think, _time to run through options_. _One, fight them here and now. You know the terrain, and hell, you can jump. But if, as you suspect, they can tell what you're doing…you could wind up back in that fucking box again. And that could be one helluva stupid way to die. Pick your battles, don't get cocky. That's what got you into this mess to begin with. Two, get away. _

The vehicles have got near enough for me to be able to see them through the haze and dust. Two black SUVs, two black sedans. Typical paladin desire to blend in with the surroundings, obviously. A couple of beat-up pick-up trucks might have made me question my original suspicions, but no…black and mysterious it is. Fine. Time to go.

_Jump. _

Abandoned block of flats on the outskirts of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ignoring the crumbling concrete, rusty handrail and nauseating stench of urine in the stairwell, I run up the stairs two at a time, arrive at a dark red door with paint peeling off and the faded remains of a number 22 painted in black. I pick the key off the top of the doorframe – security isn't really an issue here – unlock the door, go in and head straight for the bedroom. I grab a pair of army boots from beside the bed and socks from a drawer, and puts them on, ignoring the twinges of pain from my feet as I do so. Then I haul down a suitcase from on top of the wardrobe. Take two pistols, tuck one into the back of my jeans and lay the other on the bed. A couple of grenades, and a sniper rifle. The baseball bat is lost, somewhere outside Boston where I was caught. If I have the time, I decide, I'll look for it afterwards. Not quite ready to give up on that part of my life just yet. I glance at myself in the mirror. 'Dishevelled' is the kindest word that springs to mind. 'A fucking mess' would be closer to the truth. Five days at least since I last had a shave or shower (excluding involuntary baths, courtesy of Paladins. Inc), dusty and sweaty, with dark shadows under my eyes, hair sticking out in every possible direction, although that's nothing new.

"Time to play," I say to my reflection, which grins back at me, void of any kind of humour.

_Jump_.

I land on the top of an outcrop of rock about two hundred metres from where I'd been originally, drop as low as I can go to avoid being seen immediately. Any Sensitives in the group will have felt my arrival, but that's unavoidable. I know they'll be looking in this direction for me, so I get out the rifle and set it up quickly. Through the sight I can see a group of them, seven in total, heading towards me. They'll be wearing body armour, so it's head shots for the kill or nothing. I pick off the paladin to the left of the pack, a tall black man. From my vantage point I can't hear anything other than the gun, but I see the man crumple immediately. Good; one down, six to go. The others are wary now, crouched down behind rocks; I can see at least one talking on a headset. Obviously a newbie, he hasn't been taught not to gesture when talking. Hands waving all over the place. I take a pot shot and the screams reach me even up at my lofty viewpoint. Well, a paladin with only one hand might be more occupied with not bleeding to death than with trying to bring down a single jumper. And the screams are certainly distracting at least two of the remaining five.

I watch as the five paladins – four men, one woman – make their way slowly in my direction, staying behind cover as much as possible. A lone paladin is threading his way towards the injured man, whose screams have died away. I pick off the medical assistance easily, and then jump to the first outcrop of rock from where I'd first seen the paladins arriving – in the opposite direction, thus exposing the paladins who've been keeping behind cover. I see two of the five turning around to look towards me, and I takes out one of those before they have a chance to duck down behind rocks.

"Okay…four down, four to go…" I say, and set down the rifle beside me. "Come on…come on…" The next ten minutes are taken up at a crawl as I watch the small group make their way at a snail's pace towards the bottom of the rock face.

"Just like lemmings," I observe, as the first one begins to climb. I take a grenade from my bag, remove the pin, and drop it over the edge. I count to five and duck as the first fragments of stone and flesh begin to rain down. Once the chaos has subsided, I peer over the edge. Three bodies in sight, one of them twitching, the legs buried under a heap of rubble. Number four is nowhere to be seen. As I'm contemplating going down to look, a noise makes me turn round, just in time to see another paladin, a stocky bald man, firing his tether. The spike misses my leg by inches, shattering the rock beside me.

"Fuck!" I'm on the move, landing on the rock and kicking the man in the face before the paladin has a chance to shift his aim. He grunts as my foot connects with his jaw, drops his weapon, falls backwards off the outcrop. There's a sickening thud as his body hits the ground below.

"Getting a bit close," I say, then go to see how the injured newbie is fairing up.

The man is sitting with his back to a rock, cradling the remains of his left arm and whimpering. Blood pools below him and seeps into the sand. Unbidden, lyrics from a song land in my head.

_Red blood draining into the blood red earth. _

It's been too long since I last found time to take in a gig. Much too long.

I crouch down in front of the dying paladin, absent-mindedly throwing and catching the small knife that I picked up as a last minute addition in the flat. The blade flashes silver in the sunlight. "So," I say, looking at the fear in the blue eyes staring back at me, "how did you find me here?"

The man whimpers.

"Oh go on," I smile. "I'm sure you just want to get this dying business over and done with. It'll be much easier if you just tell me."

A shake of the head, the eyes harden.

"Fine, be like that." I shrug, lean forward and hook an arm underneath the man's good shoulder. "It'll be a toss up between whether you drown first or whether the sharks get you, with all that blood…"

_Jump. _


	3. Chapter 3

Part IV Part IV

After depositing the dying paladin a few miles off the east coast of Australia - a tasty snack for the local inhabitants - I jump back to the block of flats in Ljubljana. It's dark outside, nearing midnight, and only a faint flicker of light makes its way into the stairwell. The day's events are starting to catch up with me, and even though the flat is cold and damp, I find myself looking forward to catching a couple of hours' kip before heading on to warmer locations. Anna may be a double-crossing Russian bitch, I think, but she was probably right about needing to keep warm. My chest is really starting to ache now, especially when I breathe deeply. And my headache is coming back. Still, the last time I saw a paladin out in this neck of the woods was well over two years ago, even if they do seem to be breeding like maggots these days.

I pause at the faded red door. Was that my imagination, or was that really a noise inside?

"Come off it, Griff', you're getting paranoid," I mutter to myself. Still, I open the door with an element of caution, and it's a good job too because the tether that's aimed for my chest catches me on the arm instead.

Electricity flashes through my body in an instant, throwing me back against the wall of the hallway. Scrambling out of the cables as the second tether misses me by fractions of an inch, I roll sideways and then jump to the stairwell again.

"What the _fuck_...?"

I'm still swearing when the first paladin comes out onto the stairs. A swift roundhouse to the side of his head fells him like a tree, and in an instant I've grabbed the back of the man's jacket and jumped him to the top of the building, looking down over the edge of the stairs. A second kick sees the paladin taking a brief flying lesson. The thud as he hits the concrete in the foyer is graphic enough, I don't need to go check and see just how much of a mess the guy made. I jump back down to the third floor, in time to catch paladin number two. The numbers thing is something I can't seem to get out of the habit of...it feels like a computer game half the time. You know on a particular level that opponent number one always approaches from the left, opponent number two comes down the hall from in front while you're busy with number one...

"...and opponent number three," I count, throwing number two - a kid in his early twenties - down to join his friend, "is always lurking where you'd least expect him..."

I check behind the door, then cautiously move down towards the flat. While it's off the safe houses list for good, there's still a few things in there that I'd like to take with me. I listen intently, then, satisfied with the silence, jump into the middle of the kitchen. Paladin number three is apparently a Sensitive, because she whirls round by the front door, firing as she does so.

The shot catches me full on in the chest, I'm so busy staring at her. The resemblance to Alejandra is uncanny, and it's that which has caught me off guard. As the second jolt of electricity floors me, the image fades and she's simply another paladin, bearing down on me. She may be a lucky shot, but she's just not bright enough. Either that or the paladins are getting sloppy with their training, ignoring anything that's not their precious technology. While the voltage is high enough to stop me jumping, it's not enough to stop me kicking out as she bends over. I hear and feel the crack of her jaw breaking as her head goes back, and while she's out cold on the tiles I claw my way out of the tether. Breathing has suddenly become very difficult, and for a minute or two all I can do is lean against the doorframe, wheezing.

When I get enough breath back, I take the woman and chuck her down to the little reunion at the bottom of the stairs, then return to the flat. Collapse onto the bed on my back, staring up at the water-marked ceiling.

"Now this is starting to get a bit too fucked up," I say to myself.

Fine. Sunshine and warmth it is, then. I sit up, pull the suitcase across the floor towards me and stare at the contents. Weapons can be replaced easily enough, as can money. Tucked into the inside lining of the case, however, is a small collection of photos. They're faded, a little torn, but the images are still clear enough. A young couple holding a little baby, the woman looking tired but happy, the man incredibly proud. A little boy and his mum sitting on a beach, sandy and a little sunburnt, grinning from ear to ear. The same boy, a couple of years later, in his first gleaming white uniform, heading off to the dojo for his first training session. And one of the most painful ones, a nine year old boy on his birthday, with his mum and dad, sitting in front of a birthday cake. The cake had been slightly burnt and the icing was too runny - mum had never been great at baking - but the happiness that's evident on all three faces is so obvious that it _hurts_ to see it again. It's the last photo taken of the three of them together. I tuck the photos inside my jacket pocket, blink a few times to clear the tears that are threatening to return.

_Sixteen years and it still feels like yesterday_, I think. _How is that possibly fair?_

I stand up, take a quick look around the flat. There's nothing else here of any value, no point in weighing myself down unnecessarily.

_Jump_

The low-slung building is set deep against the hillside, looking out across a valley with the late afternoon sunshine warming the earth-coloured bricks. I walk up the steep slope towards the house, dragging my feet against the rough grass which reaches up to my knee, catching on my trousers. To say that the ground underfoot is uneven would be an understatement; the grass hides a multitude of dips and bumps, and more than once I stumble, almost fall. I'm tempted to jump right up to the front door, but that nagging little voice keeps reminding me:

_Never jump near home_.

Eventually I reach the front door. The house is little more than a shell, but it's a refuge, a place to hide away for a week or so, while I recover from the events of the previous couple of days. There's no glass in the windows; instead, wooden shutters are there to be closed during the night, and thrown open during the day. I had removed the glass on my first visit, to avoid the reflections of the sun on the windows, which showed as sparkling winks of light from the other side of the valley. If one was going to have a hidden house, I reasoned, you might as well try to keep it hidden. And the way the house hugged the landscape around it, it was only visible from one direction. This suited my purposes just fine.

It doesn't take long to check around the outskirts of the house, get inside and open the shutters wide. Golden sunlight streams across the rooms, highlighting clouds of dust which swirl around as I move. The warm air comes as a pleasant change from the chill dampness of the Ljubljana flat, and now I've stopped climbing my breath is already coming more easily. Leather jacket off, thrown across the back of a chair - not really ideal attire for this sort of climate.

A couple of minutes later, and water's already on the tiny gas stove, heating up for some pasta, and a jar of tomato sauce is ready on the floor next to the stove. It would be a matter of minutes to jump out, get take-out and then jump back, but I'm tired and starting to get twitchy about paladins turning up. _Only jump when it's absolutely necessary_, I have to remind myself, remembering that brief period of time when I'd hung out with David.

Okay, so it wasn't so much 'hanging out' as David clinging on like a limpet, spouting some rubbish about Marvel heroes and superpowers, while I tried to get on with things as normal. But still, that didn't excuse nicking a Merc and showing off in Tokyo. Talk about unnecessary jumping! Fifteen, sixteen times in the space of a few minutes, just to show off to some whiny American kid? If there'd be Sensitives within a hundred mile radius they'd have picked up on that little display. Even now the memory makes me cringe slightly. David's habits were catching, there was no doubt about that.

The water slowly comes up to the boil, and I tip a load of dry pasta into the saucepan, then meander slowly out to the front door to gaze out across the landscape. Things can get really shit sometimes, but a beautiful landscape, some charcoal, and a sheet of paper can cure a lot of life's problems. I'm sure there's some paper and charcoal in one of the back rooms of this place, I distinctly recall spending a summer here a couple of years back, lying out in the sunshine and sketching.

Today, though, there's something wrong. It takes me a moment to focus in on the figures climbing up the hill towards me, and even less time to spot the helicopter moving on the horizon.

"Fuck!" I go back into the house, turn off the gas and then grab my jacket. Glance back down the hill to check that they're still coming.

"Will you give a chap a fucking break, okay?" I snap, going back to the stove and loosening the valve on the gas cannister. There's a faint hissing sound and a strong smell of gas hits my nostrils seconds later. I move to one of the back rooms, just within sight of the front door. Now I just has to hope that they're as stupid as they usually are.

True to form, minutes later, the first paladin appears in the doorway.

I whistle and the man whirls round to face me, fires the tether in my direction.

_Jump._


	4. Chapter 4

**Part V**

In India they catch me on a rural train, cramped and overcrowded. I jump to New York; they show up an hour later in an all-night café. In Hong Kong they're almost waiting for me to show up at a seedy hotel room, and in the desert two hundred miles west of Cairo they turn up with two jeeps and nearly catch me sleeping in a cave –

_It's not a cave, it's a lair!_

- but terminology doesn't hold much weight with paladins. If the jeeps had been quieter, I could be back in the box again by now. I practically sleep-jump to the Empty Quarter, sits shivering in the freezing wasteland, a clear black sky above, the swathe of the Milky Way making me feel small and alone. I try not to look up. Ten minutes later I have to move again; the paladins have cottoned on to the fact that the Empty Quarter is my instinctive place to escape to, and have set up camp in the vicinity.

By the time the sun is setting over London two days later, I am irritated, exhausted, and in serious need of sleep. I appear in a secluded corner of Kennington underground station and walk out into the evening commute. By now I don't think that I can escape them, all I want to do is hide long enough to be able to catch some sleep. But the longer I spend running, the more jittery I'm getting. Everyone who looks at me for more than a few seconds – which is quite a few, given that I'm in desperate need of a shower and shave – makes me want to jump away. Every grey coat sends shivers down my spine and makes me do a double-take. I follow the flow of the crowd along the corridor and down a wide set of steps. At the bottom I turn to the left and walk along the platform, checking over my shoulder constantly.

_If you want to look shifty, you're doing a great job_, I think. _Just act normal._

Easier said than done. There's a slight scuffle at the other end of the platform and instantly I whirl round to see what's happening. Only a couple of teenagers mucking around, but my heart's pounding and out of the corner of my eye I see a man in a grey coat pull something out of his pocket. I turn, grab the man by the throat and slam him back against the tiled wall.

"Don't even _fucking_ try it!" I hiss.

The man makes a small whimpering sound and holds up his mobile phone as explanation.

I drop my hold instantly, take a step back, mortified. "Sorry, I…er…I thought…"

The man frowns and rubs his neck. "You thought _what_?"

"I…" I shrug my shoulders apologetically. "It's been a long day."

In the background I hear someone muttering about drugs, and 'isn't it such a shame', and 'somebody should call the police'. I look around, stare at the two women who are watching me in what they think is a discrete manner until they look away.

At that moment, a train pulls into the station. A wave of tired, indifferent Londoners disembark, and a second wave push their way in through the doors. I find myself pressed into a corner, looking out of the window at the station wall. Posters show me films I have no intention of watching, exhibitions I will never see, and inform me that Transport For London is doing its bit, so I should as well. The train pulls out of the station and the posters blur, faster and faster until suddenly it's all black and all I can see is my distorted reflection staring back at me from the window.

Someone saying my name jolts me back to reality. I twist around in my corner, trying to focus in on the voice I'd heard. Nothing.

_I'm imagining things,_ I think. _Stop it._

Nevertheless, I get out at Waterloo, allow myself to be swept up in the movement of the crowds heading up onto the main concourse.

"– his parents died, of course – "

I jerk my head round to see a couple of young women walking past me, chatting.

"I wish they'd come up with a better plot than that…" the second one is saying, completely oblivious to me staring at her, a scruffy young man with bloodshot eyes and clothes that look as if they've seen a war zone. (They have, actually, by now, seen a couple…)

I close my eyes, let the noise of the station swallow me, wash over me and hide me in the milling crowds. Thousands of people pass through this station every day. Thousands of people on the underground. They can't track me through here. I open my eyes again, try to focus on the departures board. The words blur, and every time they move I have to try and refocus. Eventually I give up, turn to my right and walk down to platform 19. I skip past the guard checking tickets in a group of people, keeping close to the wall, and walk towards the far end of the train. At the end of the platform I can see the dark sky, shot through with the orange glow of a million streetlights; wet railway lines reflecting the white light from the station as they trail off into the darkness.

I board the train, no longer caring where I go, just grateful to sit down in warmth and anonymity. The carriage fills up around me, but I'm only aware of the existence of other people, no specifics register. I still can't sleep, though, not with so many people around me. I sit, huddled up against the window, staring out blankly at the water droplets moving slowly down the glass. The movement of the train numbs me into a waking doze, and it's only the screech of brakes twenty minutes later that makes me return my gaze to the inside of the carriage. The girl sitting across from me is wearing a long, dark coat, too big for her. An art folder leans up against the side of the seat, and she's engrossed in a book, red hair tied back.

"E.V.?" I can't help asking.

She looks up, puzzled. Not E.V. – how could it possibly be her? She's thousands of miles away. And a good five years older than this girl is. Now I look at her properly, I can't see even more than a passing resemblance.

"Sorry, thought you were someone else," I mutter, looking back out of the window at the now-still landscape. There's no explanation for the sudden stop in the middle of nowhere, and I get a sense that something's wrong. This is too much of a coincidence. As this thought crosses my mind, the door at the far end of the carriage opens and two men in long grey coats walk through, scanning the seats as they come. I shrink back into my corner, but it's too late. The taller of the two men talks quickly into his phone, while his companion reaches inside his coat and pulls out a gun.

The screams are still echoing in my ears as I appears in Sam and Consuelo's house.

Standing in the hall, I look around, confused. Morning sunshine streams through the broken windows.

_Okay…this wasn't even where I was thinking of_, I think. _Can't stay here._

I try to remember the cave in Peru, tucked away halfway up a mountain, remote in the extreme. Nowhere for a helicopter to land, no roads nearby. They might be able to tell where I am, but it'll take them a while to get there, surely. But the images skitter around in my head, flashes of all the places I've been in the last couple of days, blending together. It's like watching a film reel unwind at double speed, unable to pause on any one image. I keep catching glimpses of the cave in my memory, but I can't focus enough to be able to make the jump.

There's a crash outside, a bin being knocked over, maybe. Whatever it is, it's enough to make me jump away.

Standing outside the block of flats in Ljubljana, I look around in horror at the ruined landscape. Heavy rain is falling from a black sky, soaking the mounds of rubble and earth that stretch off towards a wire fence in the distance; remains of other buildings that have been demolished. Thunder rumbles around at the edge of my hearing.

Bewildered, I walk among the ruins, ignoring the deep puddles that soak through my boots and the cold rain that trickles down the inside of my collar and drips from my hair.

_I have no control over where I jump to_, I realise. The thought chills me more than the rain. The realisation that I could accidentally jump back to the glass cube or – possibly worse – try to jump to a place that no longer exists, makes me stumble. I find a large chunk of broken masonry and sit down, staring out at the desolation. My entire body aches and my hands are shaking, whether with cold or exhaustion I can't tell any more.

"So, what happens now?" I ask out loud, and am shocked to hear a slight tremble in my voice. _Now_? I think, _now the paladins turn up, and I can't get away from them. I can't pick my battles any more._

"They're in control."

_Haven't they always been?_

"No."

_No? _

The sound of approaching vehicles makes me look up. Blazing white headlights cut a swathe through the darkness, illuminating the rain sheeting down, making hard shadows of the uneven landscape. Deep puddles of water in the mud, twisted metal reaching like broken fingers out of the crumbled brickwork and earth.

In my mind's eye, I see a war zone, and something I once said to David flickers through my memory.

_Welcome to the war. _

The Coliseum, warmth and sunshine seems like a different world. I sit silently, watching the trucks pick their way across the rubble and then stop. Dark figures step out with military precision.

I get to my feet, bend down and grab a piece of broken metal out of the dirt. It's about three feet long, and heavy, and my arm muscles scream at me with the effort. I grit my teeth through the pain and stand, holding it up in front of me, waiting for them to notice me. It doesn't take them long.

"Come on then!" I yell, drop and roll away from the first tether which hits where I'd been sitting. I feel splinters of brickwork hitting the back of my head, then I'm back on my feet again, swaying.

"Is that the best you can do?" The second one catches me in the chest, sending spasms through my body. I drop the metal bar, fall to my hands and knees in the mud, feeling the electricity burning. Lightning flickers across the sky and thunder crashes overhead almost immediately after, seeming to rip the world apart. I don't have the strength left to try and struggle out of the cables, and now the paladins are walking towards me. Through blurred vision, I can make out five figures. Then I see a sixth, walking a pace or so behind them. In the next flash of lightning I think I see white light reflecting off a long, thin blade.

The next moment I hear a scream, then shouting and the sound of weapons being fired. Blinking water and mud from my eyes, I can make out four figures running around, and a fifth who suddenly appears crouched in front of my, dark hair streaming with water, katana in her hand. Blood drips dark from the blade, already being washed clean by the rain.

"I'm not doing this for you," she says, then jumps back to the fight, as a tether hits the ground where she's been.


End file.
